For the next hundred yards his cheeks burned and his vanity cooled. But
bumptiousness is elastic in France, as in England, and doubtless among
the Esquimaux. "Well, they are pretty girls," says he to himself. "I
never saw two such pretty girls together; they will do for me to flirt
with while I am banished to this Arcadia." Banished from school, I beg
to observe.

And "awful beauty" being no longer in sight, Mr. Edouard resolved he
would flirt with them to their hearts' content. But there are ladies
with whom a certain preliminary is required before you can flirt with
them. You must be on speaking terms. How was this to be managed?

He used to watch at his window with a telescope, and whenever the
sisters came out of their own grounds, which unfortunately was not
above twice a week, he would throw himself in their way by the merest
accident, and pay them a dignified and courteous salute, which he had
carefully got up before a mirror in the privacy of his own chamber.

One day, as he took off his hat to the young ladies, there broke from
one of them a smile, so sudden, sweet, and vivid, that he seemed to feel
it smite him first on the eyes then in the heart. He could not sleep for
this smile.

Yet he had seen many smilers; but to be sure most of them smiled without
effect, because they smiled eternally; they seemed cast with their
mouths open, and their pretty teeth forever in sight; and this has a
saddening influence on a man of sense--when it has any. But here a fair,
pensive face had brightened at sight of him; a lovely countenance, on
which circumstances, not nature, had impressed gravity, had sprung back
to its natural gayety for a moment, and had thrilled and bewitched the